Imagine two old racers who kind of don’t like each other and want really nothing to do with each other, both tied for all-time wins in NASCAR history and having their tie hinge on a weird ruling from 50 years ago. That is exactly the story of Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip who both sit at 84 carer wins in NASCAR. The video below tells this story in fantastic detail and with great context, but the crux of it is that in the early 1970s car counts were suffering and Bill France decided to allow Grand American cars to compete with the big daddy Grand National cars. No problem, right? Wrong. The smaller and lighter Grand American cars could wallop the larger and heavier Grand National cars on short tracks…and that’s what happened in 1971.
Bobby Allison won a race at Bowman-Gray Stadium and was credited with the payout but not given a win. Why? Bizarrely because it was a Grand National race and he was in a Grand American car (which they allowed!).
This one digit on Allison’t win total have really haunted him over the years, especially being knotted up with a guy he really never liked in the form of Darrell Waltrip.
This is a great story.
